


Hurt

by cumberpatchcats



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Other, Transphobia, but what's new, courfeyrac is a dick, feuilly is an angel, slight mentions of self-harm, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 14:45:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cumberpatchcats/pseuds/cumberpatchcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jehan was nine years old, it finally dawned on her that she was different from other boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: severe transphobia, use of the "t-word", slight mentions of self-harm, self-depreciation. Read at your own risk.

When Jean Prouvaire was six years old, she had a friend. They would crouch down beside the fence during recess and pick tiny flowers growing around the edge of the property. She taught Jehan how to weave flower stems together and make a crown of daisies and everyone thought it was cute.

In first grade, kids would chant, teasing that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, but they stood tall and silent, because they both knew the truth and that’s all that mattered to them.

In second grade, she told Jehan “mommy says I can’t play with you anymore.” She never spoke to Jehan again.

When Jehan was nine years old, it finally dawned on her that she was different from other boys. Her hair was longer, her voice was softer, and she still liked picking flowers as opposed to bouncing a basketball up and down a tar court. It was easier for her to talk to the girls in her class, but even then she found friendship a difficult thing because at that age, talking to someone of the opposite sex automatically meant you were dating, and nobody wanted to date he.

When Jehan was ten, she learned what the word ‘gay’ meant. A boy had poked her in the back when she sat alone braiding blades of grass together and asked her if she was. Jehan had tilted her head to the side and asked for the meaning of the word. The boy simply replied “it means you want to be a girl.” Jehan hadn’t really thought about it, but for some reason the thought was rather appealing, and being as innocent and naïve as she was, she nodded. That boy laughed in her face and hopped away to tell his friends, and soon everybody in the class knew that Jean Prouvaire wanted to be a girl, and they made sure she remembered it.

Jehan went home and cried, and her mother poured her a glass of milk, pet her head softly, and told her she would love him no matter what. That was the first day they went shopping together and Jehan came home with a light purple tank top in a bag and a beaming smile on her face. She had told her mother she wanted a flower skirt like one all the girls wore, but her mother had hesitated and told her this type of thing needed to be done slowly. Jehan didn’t seem to understand. She threw a fit in the store and her mother looked like she was going to cry.

It would be two years before Jehan finally realized that being gay didn’t mean wanting to be a girl at all. They were, in fact, two different things entirely. Of course, it didn’t help her all that much.

 Middle school was when things really started to get bad. It wasn’t the teasing or the name calling, Jehan could handle that. It wasn’t the wads of paper thrown at the back of her head or the ignorant kids who yanked at the back of her ponytail, or even those who would deliberately shove her against the lockers as they walked by. Rather, Jehan was beginning to notice things. A lump was beginning to form in her throat and her voice began to crack. She was growing taller and taller until she towered over a majority of the females at school. She was constantly looking at herself in the mirror, terrified that she’d wake up one day and be covered in facial hair. She cried to her mother yet again, and mother poured her a glass of hot chocolate, pet her head, and told her that her father could teach her how to shave and that it’d be fun. Except it wouldn’t be. Not at all.

A day after Jehan completed the eighth grade, she was in the hospital. She had tried to cut out her Adam ’s apple with a kitchen knife and her parents were absolutely devastated. The scar would remain with her for the rest of her life.

By the time Jehan graduated high school, she had become a whole new person. Halfway between freshman year (her darkest year) her parents let her switch schools, and with a fresh start she was able to find a group of people who accepted her. She became social and happier than she had been in a long time. Things were okay for now. She was blessed to have a pretty lanky, androgynous body and a thin face, so if she looked at herself in the mirror at just the right angle, she could pretend she was exactly who she wanted to be, and that was okay for her. She had a total of two boyfriends, only one of which she had left with a sour memory. They had broken up in junior year, when he had showed up at Jehan’s door for a date, and upon looking horrified at Jehan’s pastel green button down and tight flowered capris obviously from the _female_ side of the store, asked her to change into something more appropriate. Jehan had slammed the door on his face and they never spoke since. When her mother comforted her, she poured him a cup of tea, pet her head gently, and told her she’d find someone special one day.

It was Enjolras who spotted her first, at college freshman orientation. He had boldly walked up to Jehan and complimented her sun hat. Later Jehan would learn Enjolras was only being friendly enough to drag people into his newly formed social justice club and couldn’t actually care any less about whatever was on Jehan’s hat, but whatever his tactic was it worked because Jehan soon found herself in a whole new world of friends.

Nobody talked about it. Nobody mentioned anything about Jehan’s outfits unless it was to compliment her shirt or to tell her that those shorts did _not_ match those shoes, not that Jehan cared much anyways. Nobody asked her if she was gay or a ‘fucking tranny’ or why she felt the need to dress up as the ‘subordinate gender’. They never questioned the faded scar on her neck just below the obvious lump in her throat—she suspected most of them couldn’t fit the puzzle together, but Enjolras could. And probably Combeferre because Combeferre knew everything. They never mentioned it. Jehan was just a friend to them, and they enjoyed talking to her and she enjoyed talking to them. It was nice.

It was Feuilly who made the bold move to ask Jehan which pronouns she preferred.

His question startled Jehan, who was unable to answer for a long time, unsure of what the correct response was. Truth be told, she had been called a ‘him’ for her entire life, and it would be weird for both her and the people around her to suddenly call her differently, but she couldn’t help the yearning in her heart. Would they be okay with referring to her as a ‘her’? She asked so quite tentatively.

Feuilly grinned at her. Then he turned to the rest of the room and shouted “hey, she says it’s okay!”

Jehan grabbed Feuilly and kissed him feverishly on the cheek.

 

\---

 

Courfeyrac was everything Jehan dreamed of. A smooth, charismatic young man with a crooked grin and a kind heart. His tongue was sharp but his touch was soft, and when their hands brushed as they handed papers to each other, Jehan’s heart tumbled over in a somersault.

Courfeyrac was also straight. Or at least, according to everyone in the world—including himself. Girls were great. They were cute and feminine and boobs were fun and Courfeyrac loved them. And Jehan would go back to her dorm, look at herself in the mirror, run her hands down her flat chest, and wonder if she could get away with it—if she could be just as much of a girl as Courfeyrac needed him to be. But she couldn’t, she never could, because she had a lump in his throat and a bulge in her pants and she was tall—taller than the man of her dreams.

She’d sit down and cry and her roommate Grantaire would pour her a glass of wine, pet her hair, and keep his mouth damn shut because really how the hell do you deal with this kind of thing?

 

\---

 

It was a pretty wild party. Bahorel’s twentieth birthday to be exact, and he celebrated by inviting the whole fucking campus.

By midnight Feuilly was high out of his mind and Grantaire was passed out drunk, dragged to the corner of the room where nobody could step on him.

Jehan didn’t know when or how she had ended up on Courfeyrac’s lap, but she suspected it had something to do with the fact that every other seat was occupied and her feet were pretty sore from all that dancing. Courfeyrac was probably on his fourth or eleventh beer, really who was counting, and Jehan had to admit she wasn’t feeling all that sober either.

They spent the night together, Courfeyrac’s fingers accidentally finding their way into Jehan’s. Courfeyrac whispered things in her ear and Jehan giggled, and everything was perfect.

Then they kissed.

Jehan might as well have had a heart attack, her chest was so constricted, but at least if she did she could say she died happy with the lips of the one she craved lingering on his own. Courfeyrac’s lips were strong and sturdy and Jehan wanted more, more, more, so she grabbed the back of Courfeyrac’s neck and pulled him forward. In response, Courfeyrac held onto Jehan’s shoulders and squeezed as if she would disappear if he ever let go.

The kiss lasted for a much shorter time than Jehan hoped for. When Courfeyrac pulled away, they were both breathless, and he took Jehan’s chin in his hand to gaze into her eyes. He whispered “you're such a beautiful girl.”

Jehan’s heart fluttered again, and she couldn’t help the wide grin spread out across her face. Oh, how she had always wanted someone to say that to her.

As soon as the words were said, however, Courfeyrac seemed to snap. He looked like he was in shock, and then apologized and told Jehan he needed to leave. Like, right now.

It wasn’t until Courfeyrac was gone that Jehan realized that he had probably said “you would make a beautiful girl” in a sort of “jee it’s a shame you aren’t a girl because then I’d totally bang you” sort of way.

To Jehan, it was the same thing as rejection.

 

\---

 

Well so be it. If it was a girl Courfeyrac wanted, it was a girl he’d get. In a haze of adrenaline and fury, Jehan prepared herself the next morning in a light pink tank top and a pair of flared light-wash jeans with diamond studs adorning the pockets. She called Cosette and the two of them held a little nail painting party, Cosette’s nails painted hot pink, Jehan’s a pastel turquoise, and Grantaire’s black because he had suddenly gotten nonconsensually roped into the whole thing.

Then Cosette fixed her up like a doll, sporting silver eyeshadow and slightly winged eyeliner, which was really hard to draw when both of them would not quit giggling.

Pink tinted lipgloss sealed the deal and when Jehan looked at herself in the mirror, even she had to admit she was pretty breathtaking.

“Beautiful,” Cosette breathed, probably referring to her masterpiece rather than Jehan herself.

At that point, Cosette caught Jehan gazing longingly at her—namely at her bare legs, partway covered by a yellow floral-patterned pleated skirt.

She smiled at Jehan softly. “Do you want to try it on?” She pointed to her own skirt.

Jehan looked startled, like she had just been caught staring at something she wasn’t supposed to. But Cosette looked completely serious. “Really?” she asked, her voice hesitant as if still unsure of Cosette’s commitment to her proposal.

Cosette shrugged. “Yeah, why not?”

It was the first time Jehan had ever worn a skirt despite so many years of wanting. She couldn’t stop staring at herself in the mirror, turning around and twisting side to side so that the skirt swayed around her. The feeling of her bare legs brushing against each other beneath  thrilled her. She captivated herself. She captivated Cosette.

“What do you think?” She asked, spinning around again for her audience to see.

Cosette, now dressed in a pair of flared light-wash jeans with diamond studs adorning the pockets, flashed her two thumbs up.

Grantaire—a bottle of beer in his hand—raised his drink and nodded. “I’d bang the fuck out of you if I were straight.”

Jehan could have exploded with happiness.

 

\---

 

When she entered the meeting room, everyone shut up. Suddenly all eyes were on her and Jehan started to feel a bit self-conscious. She suddenly felt naked when her bare legs brushed against each other, and she clutched the edge of Cosette’s skirt tightly, wondering if she had just made a big mistake. They were fine with the feminine clothing, with the long hair and the ballet flats, but maybe this was taking things too far. Maybe this was where her friends drew the line. And the thought of that made Jehan’s stomach churn.

Grantaire nudged her affectionately, but Jehan remained frozen on the spot. There across the room, sat Courfeyrac, staring at her with his eyes wide and his mouth gaped open. Horrified, maybe? Confused? It was Jehan’s terrible high school boyfriend all over again. Jehan felt so, so very small.

At that point, Enjolras walked up to her and gave her a quick pat on the shoulder. “Good, you’re here, now we can start planning the charity festival.” He then spun around on his heels and walked back to his position at the front of the room as if he hadn’t noticed a single thing. And perhaps he hadn’t.

Enjolras’s indifference relaxed Jehan enough to sit through the meeting without thinking too much about all the astonished eyes bearing holes through her back.

When the meeting ended, Jehan caught Courfeyrac sitting across Combeferre, engaged in some sort of discussion.

It was time for Jehan to move.

She walked up to Courfeyrac, swinging her hips as much as possible to make the skirt sway side to side, and stopped just a few inches short of her target. She took a deep breath, bit her bottom lip, and began twirling the end of her braid around her finger as she said “hey, cutie.” She had picked up the greeting from another girl who had successfully swept Courfeyrac off his feet a couple weeks ago.

Courfeyrac looked up at him like he was confused. “What are you doing?”

“Flirting,” Jehan answered bluntly. “What’s it look like?”

“Well stop,” Courfeyrac commanded. “It’s weird.”

Jehan frowned. “It’s weird? Or I’m weird?”

“Jehan I’m really not in the mood—,”

“Because I look weird? Because I shouldn’t be dressed like this, is that it?”

“Stop.”

“Why?”

“Just stop, okay? You’re making a scene.”

Jehan put her hands on her hips in defiance. “What, are you embarrassed by me or something?”

“Yes!”

The proclamation startled Jehan, who took a step back like she had just been punched in the stomach.

But it seemed like Courfeyrac was not yet finished, because he slammed his fist on the table, this time startled Combeferre across from him. “Just look at yourself,” he hissed. “You’re acting like a fool walking around like that like it’s going to change anything!”

Jehan’s jaw dropped, and her stomach followed.

“You can’t keep living your life in denial, Jehan. You’re a _man_ , sorry to finally break it to you. No matter what, that’s not going to change, you’re never going to be able to change. When are you going to accept the fact that you will never, _ever_ be a woman? All you’re ever going to look like is a _fag_ and one day you’re just going to have to suck it up and face the fact that no matter what you do, you’re still going to wake up every morning with a penis!”

Jehan’s first instinct was to slap him right across the face.

Courfeyrac, shocked and sporting a stinging cheek, looked up into Jehan’s eyes to find a mixture of incredible fury, forlorn sadness, and hopeless defeat. When he looked at Combeferre, he found surprise and anger in his eyes as well. Across the room, he could see Enjolras stomping towards him—had he heard the whole thing? Either way, he was in some serious shit.

Grantaire was at Jehan’s side in an instant, squeezing her shoulder firmly.

“Jehan,” Courfeyrac breathed. “Look, I didn’t mean—,”

“Save it, Courf,” Jehan barked through clenched teeth. “I’m just going to leave. I’d hate to bother you any longer with my _penis_ in a skirt.” And she spun around on her heels, her skirt swishing with her, and stormed away with Grantaire close behind.

When Jehan was out of sight, Combeferre lowered his head and finally spoke. “That was a _shit_ thing to say.”

And when Enjolras finally approached, Courfeyrac simply laid his head on the table and prepared himself for his inevitable lecture.

 

\---

 

When Courfeyrac called, it was Grantaire that picked up.

“Is Jehan there?” he quickly asked.

Grantaire hesitated for a moment. “Jehan doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Yeah but I _need_ to talk to her.”

“Tough shit, Courfeyrac.”

“I need to apologize, okay? She needs to know.”

There was another moment of hesitation. Then a sigh. “Fine. Come on over—Jesus _fuck_ Jehan don’t throw that, he said he wanted to apol—fucking ow! What the fuck did you just hit me with?” And the line went dead.

  
\---

 

When the door opened, Courfeyrac was greeted by a bouncy ball to the face, which hurts a lot more than you'd think.

“Sorry,” Grantaire apologized, picking up the ball from where it had landed at Courfeyrac’s feet. “I gave it to her for stress relief.”

“And I’m feeling better already,” Jehan snapped out bitterly.

“You’re supposed to fucking _squeeze_ it, not kill people with it,” Grantaire pointed out before slipping past the two and heading towards his bedroom because he sure as hell didn’t want to get caught up in whatever conversation they were about to have.

Courfeyrac frowned when he saw Jehan sitting cross-legged on the couch. Cosette’s skirt lay thrown across the room, and Jehan was now in a baggy black sweatshirt and a pair of baggy jeans, both of which obviously belonged to Grantaire and did not fit well on Jehan’s slender frame. Her hair was unkempt and her makeup was smudged like she had tried to scrub it off with little success. She would forever curse waterproof eyeliner.

Courfeyrac took a step forward and Jehan stiffened her back.

 “Careful Courfeyrac,” Jehan warned. “I have a penis.”

Courfeyrac rolled his eyes. “Okay can we stop with the penis shit? You’ve made your point. I’m sorry I’m a dick.”

“Wow, and suddenly everything’s all better,” Jehan scoffed.

Courfeyrac took another step forward, and then another, until he was standing right in front of Jehan. “I mean it, Jehan. And by that I mean, I didn’t mean any of it. What I said back at the meeting.”

“Really, Courf?” Jehan raised an eyebrow. “Because it sure seemed like it. It seemed like something someone would say after holding an opinion for a really long time and suddenly grabbing a chance to voice it.”

Courfeyrac shuffled his feet awkwardly. “I don’t really think that of you.”

Jehan frowned. “Then why say it? Did you _want_ to hurt me?”

“No,” Courfeyrac said immediately. “Yes. No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Courfeyrac sighed. “You know…you remember what I said the other day? At that dumb party?”

Jehan cringed. Oh, she remembered all right. “Yeah. You told me the only thing stopping you from getting in my pants is what’s in them.”

“That’s not what I said at all,” Courfeyrac reminded him. “I couldn’t give two shits about that. I told you you’d make a beautiful girl. And I meant it.”

“And yet…”

Courfeyrac reached his hand out and Jehan stiffened when she felt his touch on her throat. Courfeyrac traced the scar on Jehan’s neck, the scar Jehan had given himself when she had tried to fixed herself and failed, and Courfeyrac looked sad.

But Jehan did not pull away.

“I got upset,” Courfeyrac explained. “You frustrate me. Like, whenever I see you I’m overwhelmed by this strange sense of empathy, and you frustrate me because I know it frustrates you. I feel for you, Jehan, for what you want. And it makes me angry that you don’t have it. I called you a beautiful girl and then I felt sad because I meant it, and I knew you wanted it to be true. And then tonight, I freaked out and said those hurtful things, things that I’ve been telling myself over and over again, things that hurt me too. When I tell myself that you don’t have what you want, it hurts me, and for some reason I wanted you to feel the same, I wanted you to hurt the way I’ve been hurting. And shit, I really didn’t mean to call you a fag, that was really low of me. I just, I thought about how many times you’ve probably been called that, and my heart stopped. And I saw you walk into that café with that _goddamn sexy_ skirt on and I could see people judging you and it _infuriated_ me, and it infuriated me even more that it didn’t infuriate you. And it’s so fucking hard to explain this. I mean, do you understand me? Because I can’t, I have no fucking clue what I’m saying. I have no fucking idea why I’m here.”

Jehan didn’t say anything for a long time. She simply stared at her feet, fingers running slowly through the ends of her hair.

“Jehan.”

No response.

“Jehan.”

“Jehan please say something. Anything. I’d even take a ‘fuck you get out of my sight’ at this point.”

And Jehan finally opened her mouth.

“Seventeen.”

“What?” Courfeyrac asked, confused by the seemingly random number.

Jehan raised her head. “You said you wondered how many times people have called me a fag. It’s seventeen. Seventeen, including today.”

Courfeyrac fell to his knees. “Shit Jehan, I’m so, so, so sorry.”

“I stopped counting how many times I’ve been called a tranny after thirty something. Three times people have threatened to kill me. I wake up in the morning and shave my face before anybody can see me, and I can hardly look myself in the mirror until it’s done. People stare at me when I go shopping for new clothes. People stare at me when I _wear_ my clothes. Everywhere I go, people stare at me, and they judge me.  And all I can think about is how different my entire life could have been if I had just been born in the right body. Nobody would stare at me. I could look at myself in a mirror without feeling like my entire existence is wrong, wrong, _all wrong_. And most of all,” Jehan hesitated. “Most of all, I could have you.”

“Stop,” Courfeyrac said immediately, waving his hand around. “Just stop. Shut up, okay?” And he reached forward to take Jehan’s hands in his own. Their eyes met, and suddenly the whole universe was understood by them.  “You don’t need to feel like that. At least, not that last part. Because you already have me.”

Jehan let out a soft gasp, a surprised expression mapped out on her face. “You mean…?”

Courfeyrac let one of Jehan’s hands go so he could salute, his back straightened as much as possible as he cleared his throat and stated “Jean Prouvaire, I, Courfeyrac, promise to love you every day of my life, in sickness and in health, in penis or no penis.”

Jehan elbowed him in the shoulder. “I thought you said to cut the penis shit.” But she was grinning from ear to ear nonetheless.

Courfeyrac let out a small chuckle, before learning forward. Their lips met for the second time, this time softer, and definitely a lot more sober.

“Jean Prouvaire, will you be my girlfriend?”

Jehan had to hold a hand over her heart to keep it from jumping out of her chest.

 

\---

 

They had their first date at Starbucks because they were classy motherfuckers.

Jehan had stolen another one of Cosette’s miniskirts and wore her hair up in a high ponytail. Over her shoulder she carried a light pink handbag adorned by silver sequins. Anybody who looked at the couple at first glance would assume they were an ordinary cisgendered heterosexual couple.

“I don’t have breasts,” Jehan noted bluntly.

“I know,” Courfeyrac answered.

“There’s a lump in my throat.”

“Yep.”

“I’m taller than you.”

“Gavroche is taller than me.”

“I don’t bleed out of a vagina.”

“Thank god.”

“Can I still be your girlfriend?”

And Courfeyrac grinned at her as he sipped his iced coffee through a straw. “Indubitably.” 


End file.
